28 Jul 2025
The Churchyard Group of Green Appleton is restoring part of the churchyard of St Laurence church to a wildflower meadow, using management strategies
that promote the growth of native wildflower species. Part of that strategy is to mow that part of the churchyard just twice a year, leaving it to grow
in between.
The time for the second mowing has arrived, so it took place on Saturday 26 July, changing the plot from looking like the pictures above, to those below.
It looks a bit messy, but the cut grass was left in place for a while for the seeds to fall from the cut plants, and hopefully grow again next spring.
Also, some areas were left uncut, such as the knapweed by the gravestone and an area by the wall, so some habitat for insects is retained for a while.
We found one resident that was very happy that we had left his favourite knapweed.
After the grass had been left for a couple of days, it was raked up by a happy band of volunteers, then collected together and used for bedding.
We think that the strategy of taking the grass away, and using yellow rattle to reduce the growth of grass is really working - there seems to be a lot
less grass to collect than there was when the project started.
And thanks to those putting their backs into raking and collecting!
